The present invention is directed to a system for providing users of the Internet with easy access to the World Wide Web. More particularly, the present invention is directed to providing a central location which World Wide Web users of the Internet can reach and can then instruct to provide them with ready access to a particular location on the World Wide Web portion of the Internet.
Use of the Internet, a worldwide network of more than 100,00 individual computer networks and over 50 million users, has been gaining in popularity in the last several years. At the present time, almost every large corporation, university, government, organization, and many businesses around the world are connected to and have access to the worldwide network known as the Internet. The Internet is a collection of individual computer networks which are connected to each other by means of high-speed telephone and satellite data links, and which are all connected by a public-domain communications software standard.
The Internet was developed in the late 1960s, when it was established by the United States Defense Department as a research project for use by defense contractors and universities. The purpose of the Internet at that time was to create a military computer network which could still function reliably if any parts of it were destroyed in a nuclear war. A series of standardized communications protocols for sending information around the computer network were developed in order to ensure against the inherent unreliability of telephone lines and exposed telephone switching stations.
For over 25 years, the Internet was used primarily as a research-oriented computer communications network for universities, defense contractors, governments, and organizations in science and academia. During those years, it grew slowly but steadily and its proven freely, available communications protocols were also adopted by the computer and telecommunications industries and by large corporations, who used the Internet for electronic mail communications between and among their companies. In 1992, the United States Government turned over operation of the Internet's high-speed data links to commercial communications networks. That transfer, as well as the concurrent explosion in the use of personal computers, local area networks, bulletin boards systems, and consumer-oriented online services, caused the Internet to grow tremendously. Because of the convergence of those events, a critical mass for acceptance of the Internet as a standard means for the worldwide connection of individual computer networks of all kinds and sizes was created.
One of the reasons for the explosive growth of the Internet, which is growing at an estimated rate of 15%-20% per month, is the widespread acceptance of the Internet as the standard for electronic mail. The Internet is also well known for its two other main features, its usenet newsgroups, which constitute thousands of on-line discussion groups covering a wide variety of business, personal, and technical subjects, and the latest Internet phenomenon, the World Wide Web.
The World Wide Web or Web, as it is more commonly known, is a standardized method of combining the display of graphics, text, video and audio clips, as well as other features, such as secure credit card transactions, into a standardized, graphical, friendly interface that is easy for anyone to use. That is in contrast to the use of the Internet for electronic mail, which primarily consists of rapid text-based communications among one or more individuals.
The Web was designed by a British scientist in 1991 as a way to let researchers easily swap images instead of just messages. The creation of the first point-and-click software for "browsing" the Web, known as Mosaic, by the University of Illinois, enabled ready access to the Web by non-technically skilled users. Then, commercial companies, such as Netscape Communications Corporation, developed more sophisticated Web browsers, such as Netscape's Navigator. Another Web browser is the recently introduced Explorer 3.0 from Microsoft Corporation. Web browsers are also provided by well-known major on-line computer services such as Compuserve, American On-line, Prodigy, MCI and Netcom. Recently, Microsoft's Windows 95 operating system was introduced, which also includes its own Web browser.
The standard protocols which define the Web work in combination with a Web browser which runs on personal computers and handles the chores of accessing and displaying graphics and texts, and playing back video and audio files found on the Web. In addition to providing Web access, Web browsers and the Web tie together all the Internet's other useful features that existed before the advent of the Web, such as the newsgroups, FTP text file access, access to the net's Gopher sites, and, of course, sending or receiving electronic mail.
The World Wide Web standards are essentially a text coding, or "mark-up" method, where selected elements in a text file, such as article headlines, subheads, images and important words highlighted in the body of a text file can, by the insertion of special, bracketed codes (called HTML or Hyper Text Mark-up Language codes), be turned into hot links that are easily and instantly accessible by anyone with a Web browser.
The World Wide Web is considered by many to be the true information superhighway. It lays the foundation for the use of the Internet as an entirely new broadcast medium, one which provides individuals, groups, and companies with unprecedented new opportunities for broadcast communication. For example, it is now fairly easy to create one's own Web site or address on the Web such that all users on the Internet can reach it The Web thus provides an outlet for anyone who desires to self-publish articles, graphics, video clips, and audio files over the net. Since any individual Web site can be freely accessed by anyone else with Web access, anyone who creates a Web site has a form for broadcasting their information, news, announcements, or creative works to an audience of millions. In addition, communication by Internet electronic mail can be established by any member of this audience with the author of a Web site, thus providing a new level of two-way communication to this new broadcast medium.
Because the Web provides several key benefits for Internet users, those benefits are encouraging the explosive growth of the Web and, ultimately, the acceptance of the Internet as the world's de facto computer communications medium.
First, using the Web, is simplicity itself. Compared to the confusing Unix based commands which were required to use the Internet just a few years ago, using a Web browser provides the user with the same friendly, graphical point-and-click access to all the Internet's features that the users have come to expect from any good stand-alone Windows commercial software product. Once a user has accessed the Web, any of the 100,000 or more Web sites and their linked articles, text articles, graphic images, video/audio clips, extensive software libraries, and communications features are easily accessible with a click of the user's mouse key. In addition, any good Web browser software also opens up the Web's multimedia potential by providing users with instant and automatic access to helper applications software that automatically plays video and sound clips. Such multimedia potential has become a big attraction on the Web.
Web browsers also have a bookmark or hot list feature, which allows the user to capture and save the location of any Web site that is visited, so that such sites can be readily reaccessed by clicking on it from the user's Web browser at any time.
Using the Web, users can get instant access to many types of information, entertainment, and inter-active resources which are now available on the Web. Because of the explosion of newly created Web sites, the user can get access to useful, practical information on an almost infinite variety of subjects. The Web also provides an instant connection to millions of other people on the Internet. The resources which may be found on the Web are almost limitless.
In order to understand the use and operation of the Web, it is believed that certain terms that will be used herein should be defined. A Web browser, as previously discussed, is a graphical, Windows-based software program which is used on a personal computer to access the Web. A Web site or Web page describes an individual's "place" on the Web containing a single Web-published feature. A Web site is basically a collection of files located under a directory somewhere on someone's computer connected to the Internet. A Web site may consist of one Web page or of many Web pages, and usually also includes onscreen graphics, pictures, texts and video and audio clips, or an archive of software that can be downloaded, stored and used freely on the visitor's own personal computer.
Frequently, Web pages utilize links or hot links, two terms which are used interchangeably, to describe words or groups of words which are highlighted on Web pages. When a visitor clicks on a link with his mouse, he is immediately linked to another Web site or location on the current Web site containing the information that is referred to by the link. Any single Web site may contain dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of hot links, both to other sections within the same site or to other Web sites located anywhere else in the world.
Some Web pages also include a links page or jump site which consists of lists of links to many other Web sites. These are often a Web site author's favorite sites or feature links to Web sites pertaining to a specific subject.
Every Web site has an exact address, or location on the Web. Such addresses are known as a Uniform Resource Locator or URL. URLs consist of a confusing string of subdirectories, files or executable commands, separated by slashes, which are extremely difficult to work with and which must be typed into the user's Web browser exactly as they appear, including the use of upper and lower-case letters, in order to go to a Web site. While clicking on hot links will get the user to a Web site without having to type in a URL or copying a URL from a text file (if it is located on the user's computer) and pasting it into the user's Web browser-screen can save the user from this arduous task, the use of URLs has become the bane of the use of the Web.
Another difficulty with accessing the 100,000 or more individual Web sites is that many of them do not offer any truly useful information or other benefits. In addition, there are many Web sites which consist of nothing more than lists of links to other Web sites, which often do nothing more than link the visitor to a Web site to other useless Web link pages. Skimming along such pages can be a frustrating and information starving experience, and one which should hopefully be avoided. Thus, while in general, the Web makes everything on the Internet easy to find and access, there is a need for a directory of the well-thought out and useful sites, coupled with a way to easily and quickly access such sites in order for users to get the most from their Web experience as well as experiencing the best the Web has to offer. More particularly, given the 100,000 plus Web sites that exist at that the present time, with many more being added every day, there is a need for a system which the Web user can use to access Web sites which contain a substantial amount of original information, graphics, or multi-media, provide useful advice, news or entertainment, and present the information in a well-thought out and professional manner. Most importantly, there is a great need to provide Web users with a system for accessing such Web pages in an easy to use, automatic, and efficient manner.